【英语财经】中国动物保健品公司丢失5年财务报表 China Animal document loss highlights investor risks

In the litany of accounting problems emerging at Chinese companies, Hong Kong-listed China Animal Healthcare has managed a first: losing five years of financial statements midway through a forensic audit ordered by regulators.

The animal drug manufacturer, which is 20 per cent owned by US pharmaceutical group Eli Lilly, said in a statement that the documents went missing when a truck that was transporting them to its head office in Beijing was stolen earlier this month while the driver was having lunch.

The Eli Lilly subsidiary that invested in CAH said it was “concerned” by developments following the suspension of trading in the company’s shares in March, and had “urged the board and company chairman since that time to take steps to properly resolve the situation”.

The truck was recovered days later by local police in the city of Baoding, in northeast China, but the financial statements, which were being sent from the company’s records centre to assist with the audit, were nowhere to be found.

The company said the probability of recovering the documents, which included the current year’s books as well as those for the previous four years, was “not high”.

But it suggested there was no internal foul play, saying that “no suspicious person has been identified in the incident” and that local police say such thefts are a “common occurrence” in a place that is best known for being China’s most polluted city.

CAH has suffered a growing list of problems since trading in its shares was halted after it failed to publish its 2014 annual results on time.

Chinese officials withdrew some of its production permits in October because of concerns about factory pollution and the Hong Kong stock exchange is requiring it to complete a forensic audit into an allegation of employee misconduct, among other issues, before share trading can resume.

The situation underlines the risks for investors in Chinese companies that promised fast growth and initially delivered stellar equity performance but lacked corporate governance. A growing number of companies have seen their weaknesses exposed as the growth in the world’s second-biggest economy has slowed and investors and regulators have begun asking more questions.

The founder of Hanergy Thin Film, who was briefly China’s richest man, this week said he would sell a 6 per cent stake in his company at a 95 per cent discount to the last traded price — valuing the solar power group at about 1-40th of the $40bn it was worth at its peak — as it faces a regulatory investigation and scepticism over its business model.

Another troubled company, China Shanshui Cement, which in November became one of growing number to default on its local bonds, revealed this week that some of its corporate records as well as its all-important company stamps had gone missing.

It also said it had been locked out of its computer system after several of its directors were removed from the board at a shareholder meeting earlier this month.

The problems at CAH, which has a market capitalisation of around $1.3bn, are embarrassing for Eli Lilly’s subsidiary, Elanco, which called the company a “local industry leader” when it invested $100m in 2013 in a deal it said reinforced its “commitment to China’s efforts to ensure food safety and enhance food security and rural income”.

中国企业没完没了地出现会计问题，其中要数香港上市的中国动物保健品(China Animal Healthcare)理由最为奇葩，就在监管机构要求其作出法证调查期间，该公司丢失了5年的财务报表。

中国动物保健品在一份声明中表示，本月早些时候这些文件由一辆卡车运往北京总部，途中在司机用午餐时卡车被窃，所有文件一并丢失。美国制药集团礼来(Eli Lilly)拥有这家动物保健品生产企业20%的股份。

投资中国动物保健品的礼来子公司表示，自中国动物保健品股票于今年3月停牌后，其后续发展一直受到“关注”，而且礼来“在那之后已敦促该公司董事会及董事长采取措施，妥善解决这一情况。”

卡车是在河北省保定市丢失的，当地警方在几天后找回了这辆卡车，但那些财务报表却无处可寻。这些文件是为了协助法证调查而从该公司的档案中心发出的。

中国动物保健品表示寻回遗失文件的可能性“不大”，其中包括四个财政年度及本年度所有财务文件的正本。

但该公司认为不存在内部不当行为，还表示“事故中并无发现可疑人士”，当地警方也表示在该地，类似盗窃事故“经常发生”，这里还以中国污染最严重城市著称。

中国动物保健品在未能如期公布2014年年报后股票停牌，此后不断出现种种问题。

今年10月由于工厂污染问题，该公司部分生产许可被中国有关部门注销，港交所也要求该公司在复牌前，完成对员工不当行为的指控以及其他问题的法证调查。

中国动物保健品的现状凸显了投资中国企业的风险，这些公司承诺会快速增长，而且初期股票表现优异，但缺乏公司治理。随着全球第二大经济体增长放缓，越来越多的中国企业暴露出它们的弱点，投资者和监管机构也开始提出更多质疑。

曾短暂成为中国首富的汉能薄膜发电(Hanergy Thin Film)创始人李河君于本周宣布，将出售公司6%的股份，成交价相对于停牌前价格折让95%，停牌时该公司正面临监管调查，其商业模式也受到质疑。这笔交易令这家太阳能公司的股本估值降到巅峰时400亿美元的四十分之一。

另一家陷入困境的公司，中国山水水泥(China Shanshui Cement)在11月成为又一家拖欠地方债务的公司，本周该公司表示部分公司记录以及所有重要印章全都不翼而飞。

中国山水水泥还表示在本月初的一次股东大会上，几个董事被罢免董事职务，随后公司一直无法登陆其电脑系统。

中国动物保健品市值约为13亿美元，该公司的问题令礼来子公司Elanco尴尬不已。2013年Elanco对这家公司作出1亿美元投资，将该公司称作“本土行业的领导者”，并表示这笔交易加强了它对“中国会努力确保食品安全，提升粮食安全和农民收入的信心。”

译者/何黎